Yes, you can browse the web on your mobile
Posted 10 July 2007 at 8:41AM by Simon Dickson in Connecting to the Internet
Use of the internet on mobile phones is increasing, but by the estimates of its own industry body, it's still 'far from being mainstream'. It's not hard to see why: the experience on mobile phone browsers is typically appalling, and then there's the cost. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Opera Software, based in Norway, have always had a good reputation in the web business for producing an innovative and standards-compliant desktop web browser. But the reality of a market dominated by Microsoft and Firefox has led them in new directions. Nintendo's Wii console has an Opera web browser on board, and for a while now, they've sold a browser for higher-end smartphones. But there's also an excellent browsing tool for most Java-enabled mobiles, and even better, it's free too.
Opera Mini is a very simple idea: you download a free Java application, which connects to the web via a proxy server. The proxy server retrieves the web pages you request, alters their layout to suit a smaller screen, then compresses the data by 70-90% before sending it back to your phone. There are obvious security implications, so you may not want to use it for your online banking. But for day-to-day browsing, it means your phone - via the Opera proxy - really can process complex web pages painlessly. And the impressive compression methods will help you make the most of what can be eyewatering data tariffs.
I love Opera Mini for one simple function. On such a small screen, pages inevitably become lengthy - but there's no 'page down' key on your mobile's keypad. Opera's innovation is to use the phone's left and right buttons to 'page up' and 'page down'. It's a stroke of genius which makes a dramatic difference to web usability, and I'm really surprised that others haven't followed suit.
To get Opera Mini, go to operamini.com using your phone's existing web or WAP browser, and choose either the 'basic' or 'advanced' version, depending on your phone's memory. Early adopters can try out a beta version of the next release, which adds some useful new functions, with the promise of even more to come.
Tags: browser, java, mobile phones, opera, opera mini, wap, wii
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